Getting these 50 things out of orbit is a big deal

“In their rush to move quickly, they add to the long-term collision risk,” McKnight said.

Vice President of the National Space Agency of China, Bian Zhaigang, delivered the international space conference on Monday. He was asked about China’s commitment to good stewardship of the space environment. “A very serious challenge” in this area, “especially with huge maturing operations,” Bayan acknowledged. He did not mention China’s problem with leaving missiles in orbit.

A statement said China is “currently researching” how to remove space debris from orbit. One mission claimed by China is to test space debris mitigation technologies Docked with multiple spacecraft in orbitBut American officials see it as a military threat. The same basic technologies needed to clean up space debris — Rendezvous and docking systems, robotic weapons, and onboard automation — could be used to lock down an adversary’s satellite.

Silver lining

McKnight and his authors (from the US, UK, Italy, Japan and Russia) went the extra mile to assess how the space debris threat would change if some of the most dangerous things dropped from the list. He said the results are promising.

“If you take out 10 of the organisms, you reduce it by 30 percent,” McKnight said. “That’s a measurable change. I think that’s what was missing in the past about justifying active debris removal.”

Removing active debris is a far-fetched proposition. While it’s technically possible, as several missions have shown, there’s the question of who pays. Is there a viable market for space debris cleanup services? ESA and Japan’s space agency have invested low levels of funding in debris removal initiatives. One such project, led by a Japanese company called Astroscale, It completed a successful demonstration last year To provide the theater with a future attempt to dock it with a japanese rocket and guide it back into the air.

Astroscale was founded in 2013 for the purpose of ridding low-Earth orbit of junk. Recognizing the limited market for those missions, the company has also pivoted to pursue satellite servicing and refueling technology.

“We can influence the potential for debris generation, the potential for Kessler syndrome by removing 10 or 20 objects,” McKnight said. “The bad news is that we’ve just added 26 new creatures in the last two years.”

This story originally appeared on ARS Technica.